Parisian Louvre pyramid designer I.M. Pei turns 100

The Louvre Pyramid, designed by Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei, in the courtyard of the Louvre Museum The Chinese-American designer endured a roasting from critics before the giant glass structure opened in 1989, with up to 90 percent of Parisians said to be against the project at one point. “I received many angry glances in the streets of Paris ,” Pei later said, confessing that “after the Louvre I thought no project would be too difficult.” Yet in the end even that stern critic of modernist “carbuncles”, Britain’s Prince Charles , pronounced it “marvellous”. And the French daily Le Figaro , which had led the campaign against the “atrocious” design, celebrated its genius with a supplement on the 10th anniversary of its opening. Pei’s masterstroke was to link the three wings of the world’s most visited museum with vast underground galleries bathed in light from his gl...